As further background, conventional oral hygiene practices are designed to protect and maintain in good health and condition three main components—the teeth, gums, and tongue. Brushing one's teeth has become a fairly routine practice in society, with medium to soft bristle brushes being recommended along with toothpaste to remove plaque and food particles on and in between the teeth and gums. Although perhaps less widely practiced, the use of dental floss to clean between the teeth and gums is also a common practice. Current recommendations include such use of dental floss at least once daily to help remove materials which may cause tooth decay and a consequent need for treatment.
Dental practitioners recommend the use of a regular toothbrush with paste to brush the tongue. In addition, tongue cleaners are available and are used to scrape debris from the tongue as a separate practice from regular brushing and flossing. Nonetheless, tongue cleaning is perhaps the least practiced of these oral hygiene components. It is currently estimated that only one out of ten individuals clean their tongues each day.
The tongue serves multiple purposes in the mouth including to taste, to transfer food between teeth during chewing, and to participate in speech. In the course of daily eating habits a distinctive layer of plaque, bacteria, tongue debris or other material builds on the tongue. Excessive plaque can interfere with taste, and cause bad breath. Mouthwash and mouth fresheners may help to reduce bad breath but they do not eliminate the root cause. Improved habits and devices are thus needed to eliminate that root cause—tongue plaque. While a substantial percentage of the population may attempt to use a toothbrush to clean their tongue, the toothbrush is not designed for this purpose. The flexible bristles on the toothbrush do not provide sufficient resistance to effectively scrape away plaque on the tongue. In addition, the motion provided by the user may not be sufficiently symmetric about the tongue to cover most of its area. Moreover, the use of a toothbrush to clean the tongue can lead to choking or gagging, especially in children and adolescents.
While instruments have been proposed that are especially adapted for tongue cleaning, they have typically been inconvenient to use, to clean, and to store. Thus there exist needs for improved tongue cleaning instruments which are convenient to use, store and dispense. The present invention is addressed to these needs.